Rehab for bears forced to drink

DRUNKEN bears trained to drink beer and vodka and dance in frilly skirts are being rounded up and put in “rehab”.

Shame-faced Ukrainian officials are setting up a sanctuary for the alcoholic bears []

Shame-faced Ukrainian officials are setting up a sanctuary for the alcoholic bears before next summer’s UEFA European football championships, which it is co-hosting with Poland.

Television images of intoxicated bears gulping vodka and stumbling over in roadside bars have horrified the government in Kiev.

Officials are particularly embarrassed because the animals have been taken from the wild illegally as cubs and then tortured to make them dance.

Environment minister Mykola Zlochevsky said: “How long can we tolerate animal torture in restaurants where drunken guests make bears drink vodka for laughs?”

Bear cubs face a life of torment once they are captured. Their “training” consists of making them stand on burning embers while music is played.

To control them as they grow more dangerous, red-hot needles are forced through their highly sensitive noses so a metal ring can be fitted, by which they are chained up. Their sharp canine teeth are smashed and they are plied with copious amounts of cheap vodka.

Bear cubs face a life of torment once they are captured

Even when rescued they tend to revert to type when they see a human. After one project in Bulgaria backed by French animal rights campaigner Brigitte Bardot, an observer described the bears’ soft-shoe shuffle as “the world’s saddest dance”.

Under the new scheme up to 80 brown bears will see out their days at a sanctuary near the scenic Lake Synevyr in the Carpathian Mountains from December.

It is unlikely to scratch the surface of animal abuse across the former USSR.

Bears still commonly perform in circuses and ice-skating shows while monkeys, snakes, crocodiles and rare birds are exploited at seaside resorts.

A year ago the world was outraged when a beach donkey was strapped in a parachute and pulled by a speedboat 200ft above the Azov Sea.

Last month a 36-year-old bear called Katya, star of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, was found in a tiny cage in a rusting bus on the outskirts of the city. She uses her chipped, yellowing teeth to try to break out of the cell she shares with a boar called Pasha.